I decided to move the game camera — my plan three nights in one place, then move it to another place, to see what I could see.
Ahhhhhhhhhh, nighttime, when strange things stalk the earth
Rather cute little creatures —although, very deadly to chickens.
Shape-shifters who stalk the land at midnight.
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Nothing new here…still cold; and I do mean C.O.L.D.
Mom has put a heat lamp in the chicken house (red, because if you don’t put red in the chickens will peck on each other…Chickens are NOT very smart! Mom says that isn’t true, she says she thinks chickens are like people and treat each other just like groups of people treat each other.) She also hooked up the electric water heater for the chicken water tank. Dad has the cow water from freezing. The only thing that freezes now is our water dish, but Mom keeps a really close eye on it.
It’s so cold now that we sleep in the house….YIPEEE!!! Hoo Ray!!
I like sleeping in the house, so does Boomer.
Mom has to keep a really close eye on us there, because we get lazy and don’t want to go outside and ‘do our duty’. We’ve both been ‘trained’ but who likes to have bodily fluids freeze as it leaves your body?
Boomer said I exaggerated but when you’re advanced in age, that’s what it feels like. Frozen….well you know what I mean.
It’s really nice having Mom home. This is the first time in my whole life that I’ve lived here that Mom has been home all day long. (She goes to town sometimes, but that isn’t very long. Before she would leave before day break and get back after dark…she was gone a long, long time.)
The day warms up pretty slow. Last night the cold air was around 8* and just before the sun came up it was 6*, but the day will warm up. It got up to 40* yesterday afternoon.
Something we all do now that Mom is home ALL THE TIME is go for a walk. We walk all over the farm, she says it’s good for me…keeps my bones working. We go slow, Mom and I, Boomer runs all over the place clear up there and clear over there, back to where Mom and are. Sometimes Mom walks a little too fast for me, but she is always waits for me to catch-up.
There are lots of things to see and smell so it takes me awhile.
The coyotes are back! Mom got a little weird out because we were walking through the equipment storage area when two coyotes ran right by us. She said she guess it is so cold they are hunting in the day time.
Boomer and I have met Freddy Fox…he is new to the farm. So we have lots of critters visiting us…raccoons, skunks, coyotes, and foxes…so Mom bought a solar critter light to protect the chicken house and pen.
But one of the very best part of winter, besides getting to be in the house all most all the time…sleeping in the mud room, hanging by the fireplace…
Is…
HUNTING MICE!
It’s ever so much fun!
Fuzzy
A Mormon creaser is a type of marker. It not only marks out the furrow, it also flattens the rows (slightly packs the top of the rows) making a better environment for the little seeds.
This is an older photo; I wasn’t able to get one today, of DH backing the tractor out with the Mormon Creaser attached. It has a long flat bar with shovels attached.
Even though you are seeing the process for corn, the same steps exist for the bean ground. Alfalfa will be planted with oats as a mother crop and has slightly different planting steps. Not a lot of difference, but some. For instance, Mormon Creasing is not used on grain or alfalfa fields, but a broadcasting method.
One of the fun things about working in the fields is you get to see lots of wildlife or evidence of wildlife. Raccoons like to wash their food in the ditches, we have lots of ground birds that lay their eggs in the fields, and every once in awhile I get to see either a fox or a coyote.
This morning, while coming back from a head gate, a beautiful red fox ran alongside of the dog and I on the four-wheeler. OF COURSE I didn’t have the camera, because I am always afraid I will drop the darn thing in the water. But it was thrilling anyway! Thrilling for the dog, he whined and barked, probably gave the fox a huge fright, and thrilling for me just to be so up-close-and-personal to the fox!
Life on a Colorado Farm 